Photocopiers are well known in the art. When the copier illuminates a sheet of paper on the glass surface of a copier, a pattern of the image is projected onto the positively charged photoreceptive drum below. Light reflected from blank areas on the page hits the drum and causes the charged particles coating the drum's surface to be neutralized. This leaves positive charges only where there are dark areas on the paper that did not reflect light. These positive charges attract negatively charged toner. The toner is then transferred and fused to a positively charged sheet of paper, creating an image that matches the original.
In the process of performing services for clients, many businesses make copies of documents on copiers. The expense of copying is significant. In an attempt to recoup the copy expenses, many businesses, especially firms that bill by the hour for their services such as law, accounting, and consulting firms, charge the clients for each copy made. Efficient management of copies can actually turn the copy center into a profit center for the business, which provides incentive for providing copy accountability with a number of methods.
For example, it is known in the prior art to install a copy control module onto a copier. The copy control module asks the user to enter in a user identifier (ID) and a client identifier. Upon receipt of valid user identifier and client identifier, the control module enables a switch that allows the copier to make copies. The copy control module is not able to receive data from the copier, so the copy control module determines the number of copies made by counting electrical spikes which occur each time a copy is made (referred to in the industry as counting flashes), and associates the number with the client identifier. Counting flashes is inherently inaccurate because of difficulties differentiating data spikes from noise, as well as the fact that spikes are often created with no resultant copy, for example as paper gets stuck or toner runs out, etc.
Data is either manually collected at the copier with a portable computer or transmitted through copy control module network lines to the business's time and billing (or accounting) system, which adds the cost of the copies made to the client's bill. The disadvantages of this system include that each copier requires its own copy control module, and the modules are typically supplied by a different vendor than the copier. It is desirable to have a more accurate means of tracking copy counts. It is also desirable to eliminate the copy control module and yet be able to track associated copies made to client accounts.
A typical example of a prior art copy control module system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,026,380, assigned to On-Site Sourcing, Inc. This patent describes a photocopy count system that requires one remote mini-terminal to be associated with each photocopier. The mini-terminals communicate with a central control computer via a multiport serial board. The patent describes two different mini-terminal versions to suit photocopiers from Xerox Corporation and photocopiers from Canon, Inc. This highlights the problems identified above of a separate copy control module being required for each photocopier and different versions of the hardware being required for each brand of copier.
Copier companies typically charge the businesses a fee for each copy made, as well as a monthly fee for servicing each copier. Periodically a service technician visits each copier to monitor and record the number of copies the copy control module has counted. For large law firms, servicing each copier could mean visiting several copiers on each of multiple floors—a time-consuming process. Furthermore, at a specific copy count, the technician conducts preventive maintenance on the copier. It is desirable to service the machine near a desired number of copies to keep the machine in good working order. However, due to the labor-intensive nature of having to visit each copier to determine the number of copies made, sometimes the number of copies greatly exceeds the suggested volume before preventive maintenance is performed, thereby risking potential damage to the equipment or permitting it to print lower quality copies. For lower volume copiers, the visits to each copier are largely a waste of time.
From the business's internal perspective, it is desirable to know who is making copies, how long it takes (turnaround time), what the job is for, etc. It is desirable to be able to track copy jobs at a job-level for internal expense tracking, as well as from a client perspective for external expense tracking.
Advances in digital technology and web-based computing have improved copier performance. In contrast to analog copiers that use the physical translation of an image on one piece of paper to another, digital copiers create and receive data in digital format and create the image from the data directly on the drum. Due to the ability of digital data to be quantified, for example in single page quantities, the number of copies made can be determined accurately. It is desirable to access the accurate counts of copies directly.
Due to the benefits of digital technology, digital copiers can do much more than simply make copies of a paper document. For example, many digital copiers can make a photocopy of a paper document, print a paper document from an electronic file, scan a paper document and create an electronic file that can be stored or transmitted digitally, or fax a digital file from either a scan of a paper document or from an electronic file. Such digital document systems are known in the art as multi-function devices or MFDs, for short. The present invention applies generally to MFDs, and a copier in the preferred embodiment.
The data stream for digital documents can come from multiple sources, such as a print request from a print file, a fax, or a scan of a paper image. Because these MFDs are so versatile, they are often electrically connected (networked) to transmit data, by hardwire or wirelessly, to remote personal computers (PC). Because digital MFDs can now be configured as stations on a network, a user of a personal computer on the network can send a print request to a MFD instead of a printer in order to obtain a paper copy of the document. The user can also scan, fax and email from the MFD. Further, the same network connection that lets a user transmit a print job to the MFD can also be used to transmit information from the MFD. It is desirable to transmit such information to a central server that can compile data from multiple MFDs. It is also desirable to communicate that information to a business's accounting or time and billing system, so that clients can be charged for the number of copies (documents) made.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a system of copy accountability that can be managed from a central location or server. It is another object to provide a hosted system of cost recovery such that, optionally, the central location or server is remote from the MFD. It is another object to utilize the built-in network connection of a MFD to transmit to and receive data from this central server. It is another object of this invention to eliminate the need for a separate function control module at each MFD. It is a further object to utilize a MFD's built-in hardware and software for data entry, data validation, and job tracking. It is another object to count and track digital documents, such as copies, accurately by obtaining document counts from the MFD in digital format, as opposed to measuring a count independently of the MFD. It is another object to make data entry faster and more accurate by minimizing the number of keystrokes required. It is another object to count and track jobs accurately. It is a further object of this invention to provide a system that enables the compilation of data from multiple MFDs and provide necessary conversion and importation into the business billing system.